Diagnosis Made Easier, First Edition: Principles and Techniques for Mental Health Clinicians

I was requried to read this book for a class. It is not a difficult read and is very helpful.

Every therapist should have this on their desk, in there library.. Excellent reference of diagnosis

I was looking for a book that was detailed but written so that the beginning counselor could understand. This was the book. I enjoyed reading it & have it on my bookshelf for reference. Lots of good information & case studies.

This volume by Morrison is incredibly reader friendly, common sensical, and practical for use by mental health professionals as it pertains to making accurate diagnoses. A very helpful approach with a step-by-step process of developing your diagnosis.

1. What makes James Morrison's books special to me James Morrison has a wonderful quality: He is precise without losing his warmth. From graduate school (I have an M.A. in Psychology), I know the following dilemma: Nobody wanted to make a diagnosis of a patient (and wanted even less to be diagnosed!), because it felt like "putting people in boxes" or "being judgmental"; people were afraid the diagnostic process would be mechanical and heartless, the more so, the more precise one tried to be. Indeed, estrangement between clinician and patient/client is a danger of the diagnostic process. On the other hand, I also saw the opposite: the attempt of being close to a client, to establish warmth and rapport, can blur the clarity with which the client's problems are perceived and described. When diagnosing, it is difficult to have both, precise diagnosing and establishing optimal rapport. The best way to learn how to unify precision and rapport is to have a mentor who can do this. James Morrison's books on diagnosis are, in my opinion, such a mentor. In every description and discussion of a patient you feel the warmth toward the described patient; at the same time you can clearly see how and why Morrison diagnoses a patient in a certain way. (At times, by the way, he also describes cases when a diagnosis cannot be made.) And he does not only like the patients, he also likes you, the reader, which you will soon feel when you start reading. In addition, James Morrison writes very well. Reading him is a joy. The descriptions of his patients are personally (not just clinically) interesting: at times you can read it like a novel. He shows humor that is *never* denigrating. And it is, in a way, a very easy read. It is not an easy read because it is fluffy, needs pages to explain a point, or glosses over complicated topics, but because it is structured so well that one thing naturally leads to the next. Dolly Parton supposedly said of herself, "It's quite expensive to look so cheap"; with regard to James Morrison's books I would to say, "I must have been quite difficult writing a book that is so easy to read." 2. Content The book has three parts: I. The Basics of Diagnosis, describes the diagnostic method: How to get from the signs and symptoms of a patient to the differential diagnosis (i.e., a list of possible diagnoses), how to put these into a hierarchy (the "Hierarchy of Safety") and how to pick one (or several) as your working diagnosis. He discusses how to deal with conflicting information, missing information, uncertainty, and possible comorbid diagnoses in this process. Morrison stresses how important it is to "cast a wide net", i.e., consider a wide range of diagnoses in the beginning to avoid narrowing oneself down too fast with the danger of possibly missing the correct choice. II. The Building Blocks of Diagnosis, covers (a) what information we might want to get, beyond and apart from just a symptom list, to understand the whole patient as a